Daily News: Confirmation of Fukushima spent nuclear fuel rods damage, and Greenpeace sets a world record

Top news: TEPCO confirms some spent nuclear fuel rods in number 4 reactor are damaged; Greenpeace sets world record for most Facebook comments in 24 hours; Greenpeace activists dressed as pirates protest against mining company; the world’s first carbon-neutral bra.

Nuclear:

TEPCO, the operator of Japan’s crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, has confirmed that some of the spent nuclear fuel rods in the number 4 reactor building have been damaged. Higher than usual levels of radioactive iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137 were detected in a water sample analysis taken from the spent nuclear fuel pool. The fuel rods may have been damaged by overheating, when the cooling system failed after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, or by steel frames that fell into the pool. TEPCO plans to investigate whether it is possible to remove spent fuel from pools by deploying a small unmanned helicopter to survey the reactor.

Unfriend Coal:

You did it! Greenpeace supporters set a world record for the highest number of comments on a Facebook post in 24 hours, as part of the Facebook Unfriend Coal campaign. The folks at Guinness World Records set the bar at 50,000, and at the final count came in at an incredible 80,027 comments. It was inspiring to read your motivating comments as they rolled in, at almost one per second. Congratulations to all those who took part – you set a Guinness World Record! And Facebook Unfriend Coal t-shirts will be making their way to the authors of the 50 best comments soon.

Action:

Avast, me hearties! Loaded with doubloons and pieces of eight, Greenpeace activists dressed as pirates protested yesterday against the Canadian mining company Barrick Gold in Argentina. Barrick Gold is attempting to block the Glacier Law, intended to protect Argentina’s shrinking glaciers, from coming into force. “We must put a stop to Barrick,” said Greenpeace campaign coordinator Hernan Giardini. “This Canadian company has already affected glaciers on the Chilean side of the Pascua Lama project, and now it is preventing the audit to confirm whether, as suspected, it is affecting glaciers on the Argentine side.”

Climate:

We’ve seen carbon-neutral buildings, carbon-neutral train travel… and carbon-neutral underwear? Marks & Spencer, the British retail chain, has released the high street’s first carbon neutral bra. The new “Leaves” collection includes four styles of bra, three knickers and a set of suspenders. The Carbon Trust has calculated the carbon footprint of the range – from its manufacture, transport, washing and disposal. Bra-lliant.

That’s it for today’s update!

Got any interesting good environmental news or actions that you'd like us to highlight? Please let us know in the comments below.

(first: i suppose we can call japan so far relatively lucky as most of the first huge release of activity (j and cs) was blown on the pacific ocean...)

i suppose still much much more activity IS BEING RELEASED permanently with all the cooling water rinsing and pouring back into the sea

we urgently need data about that path, too!!
-am not familiar with the solubility of eg. pu, u, cs, j ... in sea-water and their behavoir and environmental-fate...
-suppose THIS IS THE MAIN-PATH of release of activity here -
so please keep an eye on it, too!!

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Australian aborigines decided not to extract any uranium from their lands. They are the ones who can stop nuclear industry (for energy or weapons) and possibly save the worls from this real and big danger. They are refusing big amounts of money.

Off course we can imagine the nuclear industry would try to make them change their mind in other ways, so I believe all ONGs should help them with advice, protection or any other help they need. People around the world will support them, they just need to know they are helping us.